


With a Wave of Your Hand

by itisunreal



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 19:03:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5677087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itisunreal/pseuds/itisunreal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He scoffed at her, a harsh huff of hollow laughter. “I knew. I knew what happened when people came in contact with the Diviners, and I let her go anyway.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	With a Wave of Your Hand

_You can’t keep going on like this._

“I won’t, I promise. I’ll get it together, it’s just… gonna take some time.”

Loosening his tie, Coulson rubbed at his tired face, his head heavy in his hands. The muscles of his jaw tense, and strained, and aching. His eyelids, leaden with unspent sorrow and grief, were brief to close and slow to open. Day and night he spent in a haze of restlessness, a never ending vigil. It felt like centuries had passed since he’d last slept. Last breathed deep and felt air fill his lungs wholly, completely. So utterly perfectly that he knew without a doubt he’d taken a breath, and was still existing in this life. So many days since the tunnels. Since he sent her down after Skye, since the world crumbled at his feet, and she disappeared like dust.

Everything was so different, and still so much like it had always been. He could sense her sitting in the corner. The way her shoulders sagged in disappointment, feel her disapproving gaze. Could almost hear her breathy sigh from across his office. Their office. One of the few rooms he hated wholeheartedly, couldn’t stand being in, but hadn’t found the willpower to leave.

He’d turn to look at her, to see the fire in her dark eyes, the dim light illuminate the shades of red in her hair, and he’d roll his eyes at her accusing words. Start a fight just to see the way her brow furrowed in frustration, her nose crinkle at his excuses.

He’d turn to look at her, to see her gorgeous smile, the way her shoulders shook as she laughed, and he’d grin sheepishly at whatever insult she threw back at him. He’d pull her into the tightest hug he could manage just to feel the way she breathed against him, and never let go.

He’d turn to look at her, just look. Feel. To memorize every inch that she was: the length of her neck and the point of her nose, the way her collarbones dipped and the hollows of her cheeks. The wave of her hair, the curve of her ears, the way her skin was always soft against his, the feel of her fingers in his hair…

He’d look at her, just to look at her, but he wouldn’t see her there. Not in that corner where she lounged, and read, and let her guard down. He wouldn’t see her.

He _wouldn’t_ see her.

Not in that corner, or this office, or… anywhere.

At some point he’d have to stop. Torturing himself like this was empty, and left him floundering for a steady grip, something to hold him there. He’d see someone, talk to a therapist, will himself, if necessary, to stop seeing her everywhere he looked. It wasn’t healthy or productive, but he couldn’t make himself believe she was gone, not when he felt her presence lingering around him. Them. This base.

He couldn’t help but wonder if this was how she felt when she’d learned of his death, suffocating in this blanket of bleakness and misery, but still like life was normal. Like nothing had changed. Like he had only walked away from her moments before, and would be back to her in just a few moments more.

He’d come to the conclusion long ago, before he’d ever thought she’d spend less than a lifetime beside him, that he knew too much for her to ever truly be gone. The science was too sound, he trusted it too much, for too long, seen too many amazing things.

And Jemma and Leo had been quick to remind him, in whispered tones, that in this universe where energy is neither created nor destroyed, she was still there. She was still around, every atom that made her, built her, existed. With him, here.

They may have gained a new purpose, taken a different form, but they were her. Even before they’d known it they’d been her. And they still were, as far as he was concerned.

A part of her may wander the cosmos now, dancing among the stars she’d marveled at in her youth, flitting through constellations, around nebulas. Another part, singing among the trees, out the throats of songbirds. Carried across countries with the wind, on the tongues of travelers, adventurers. Places where her eyes should have caught the photons of a new day as it crested over mountains, crawled into valleys, but hadn’t. Because work was more important than sightseeing, than traveling just for the sake of it. And then life was bitter, and happiness hard to find.

And yet, a small part was trapped, sealed in this office, in their room. The heat of her life, absorbed by the walls, weaved into the sheets of their bed, in every items she’d ever touched. Converted, but not gone…

Just different.

Pushing his chair back, his arms extended all the way to the desk, his fingers tapping in impatience, waiting for him to do something. Anything to use up this extra energy that wouldn’t let sleep, focus.

She had changed so many things. Him. Skye. Jemma. Leo. Every member of their team.

Their life.

Their experiences.

The way they thought.

Every molecule she’d ever met.

So much knowledge, and none of it helped. It didn’t alleviate the ache in his head, or the twitching of his tired eyelids. It didn’t help fill this hole he felt growing and gnawing in the middle of his chest.

Rubbing the heels of his palms into his red, itchy eyes, he sighed, and hastily pushed himself up. Discarding his jacket without a thought, he exited his office, the door banging and bouncing as he left. He had to get out, there wasn’t enough air, enough room.

He pushed through near empty halls until he burst onto the roof, sucking in deep gulps of cold night air.

And though it was no consolation, that didn’t stop the looks of sympathy, and dull words saying time would help. But he didn’t believe it, how could it? Sure, time could ease the weight on his back, bring memories to light and let him smile at them, but there would always be a scar around her, hard and thick. It’d hold him together until he could do it himself. If that moment ever came.

But time wouldn’t bring back what she was. What she meant.

It didn’t matter, he supposed, she was none of that now anyhow.

She was ash, and dust, and sun, and sorrow. All the happiness he’d ever needed. And she was gone. Lost to him in every way he’d ever had, ever wanted more of. In every way he’d ever wished, and imagined.

He swung around, his fist connecting with the concrete housing of the rooftop door.

God, he just wanted to breathe and not have everything smell like death, and decay, and her.

He punched again, no pain registering with his ever numbing senses. 

He wanted to stop seeing her…

Punch.

And missing her…

Punch.

And wishing that someone else, anyone else, had died instead…

Punch.

But most of all, he wanted to take it all back, to change it. Change how they’d started this “quest.” Wished he could change how he’d reacted when he found out about Fury, not driven her away.

Tell her he knew, everything she’d done, that it was for his own good.

Tell her all the things he’d kept secret, kept from her.

He hit the wall once more, slumping against it, his forehead scrapping against the rough cement. His hands burned, bones grinding as he flexed his fingers.

Why was the air so thin?

If only he’d never sent her down after Skye. If he’d just insisted harder, gone down himself instead. He should have sent her to back to the plane, to safety.

His eyes slipped shut hearing the squeak of the door. This was his fault, all of it. If only he hadn’t done any of this. Just left her alone in her cubical…

She’d be fine. Safe. Alive.

And there it was again, that stifling silence as the door shut, the one that slipped around him in unassuming moments. Whoever wanted to see him would leave, eventually, they always did, and he wasn’t in the mood. Couldn’t see well enough, hear well enough. Didn’t care if the world was ending again. But the quiet stretched on, and his curiosity grew despite himself.

Who possibly had the gull to disturb him?

Stepping back, he took in the sight before him. The differences he didn’t except, and similarities he couldn’t deny. She was there. 

Finally, she was there, right in front of him.

“Skye…”

The missing girl.

This person who had felt like theirs and disappeared. Who had her out searching when she was dying, when somebody could have been doing something, anything to save her. But he didn’t have the energy to be angry, and it wasn’t really her fault in the first place, it was his.

Her eyes were wide, brimming with the tears he couldn’t find anymore.

“I came as soon as they’d let me, I tried to get here sooner. I-I…”

“How’d you hear?”

Her head shook slightly watching his eyes harden. She understood though. He was hurt, so his voice was cold, harsh, even to family, posture closed off, the distance between them greater than she expected, anticipated. Yes, she understood his weariness, but that didn’t stop her from wrapping her arms around herself in defense. Against him. Against the situation. Because, yes, he’d lost someone dear to him, but so had she. “One of the people at Afterlife, they – they can sense people like us, Inhumans. They knew there was three of us in the cave…”

She paused on a long breath, looking up to keep the tears at bay, and he didn’t know why he was being so unsympathetic toward her, why he didn’t feel the urge to comfort her when normally he would. She hadn’t done anything wrong, but his family had been taken in one fell swoop. And she’d just leave again, go back to her parents, _her_ family. Her _real_ family. Then the heartbreak would be…

He didn’t know. Unbearable didn’t seem like a strong enough word, and the thought of her leaving again made his chest ache, his throat tighten. The thought of losing someone else–

“Raina – she told me. She saw it or something, the others just confirmed it.” She moved closer, and wiped at her nose, her gaze cast down.

Scrubbing at his face, he rubbed at his eyes until he saw spots. “I don’t understand, Skye. She – she survived the mist. She was fine, she… I don’t understand.” Leaning his back against the wall, he hunched over, hands on his knees. Each breath felt harder to find, and his ears rang insistently. Was this what it was to break, truly and fully? A cacophony of symphonies vying for attention until a single wrong note sent everything skittering to a halt?

Skye shrugged, sniffling. “Jiaying said that sometimes, even if someone survives the mist, that their body just can’t handle the – the change –”

“No! No, Skye, that’s bullshit, and you know it!”

He pushed himself up, and pointed at her, the insinuation clear in his gesture.

And she felt the accusation like a hit, felt it aimed at her. Felt the guilt build in her chest again.

“They could have help her, she was one of them! They just let her die!” Swinging around, he slammed his swelling hands against the wall once more. Breathing hard, he slumped against it again, the fight fleeing from him. “They could’ve saved her…”

Stepping closer again, Skye reached out a lone hand, a lifeline, to pull him in. But she pulled back as he faced her. “There was nothing they could do, DC. There wasn’t anything any of us could have done.”

“I could have not taken us there. I could have left her at the base. I could’ve not followed a map from alien DNA that I carved into walls, could’ve gone after you by myself –”

“You didn’t know what would happen.”

He scoffed at her, a harsh huff of hollow laughter. “I knew. I knew what happened when people came in contact with the Diviners, and I let her go anyway.”

Skye grabbed him by the shoulders then, startling him. “You didn’t know she was Inhuman, she probably didn’t know, and Jiaying said it’s – that it’s rare for changes to go wrong like that. It’s not your fault, and it’s not mine, and it’s not hers.”

For a moment, his eyes seemed to clear before despair washed over his features, swallowing him. “She’d be fine if she hadn’t gone down there.”

“Would you be any better off if you’d gone down instead?”

“It doesn’t matter, she’d be fine. Be here.”

“But you might not have been, then I’d be having the same, though much more one-sided, conversation.”

A bubble of laughter erupted from him, real, and hard, and sad, and unexpected. And she joined him, wiping at her eyes as the tension between thawed.

“She wasn’t as quiet as everyone thought. You just had to know her. Well enough,” he added as an afterthought. “There was a time I couldn’t get her to shut up.”

“If it helps, let us get to know her through you.”

He hugged her then, as urgently, and as tightly as his broken hands would allow because she might not have been theirs, but she was everything he ever could have imagined. And so much what she did reminded him of Melinda, and what she’d been, what she was.

Skye broke away from him with a sad half smile. “Besides, I’m sure you have quite a few stories we’d love to hear.” Helping him up, she aimed them toward the door. “Let’s go get those hands looked at.”

She’d changed so much…

And she was changing everything again.

Though she was there, he also knew that with each day that passed, she traveled further from him, to places he couldn’t follow. And maybe that was half the problem, she still felt so close, but she wasn’t.

She wasn’t close, and one day it would dawn on him that she wasn’t coming back, that she hadn’t just walked away from him, that it’d been longer than minutes since he’d seen her last.

One day he’d realize it had been years, decades even, since he’d been near her, and that he didn’t remember the sound of her voice, only the words he’d used to describe it. He’d realize the memories of her face were hazy, and looking at pictures didn’t refocus them. That her scent had faded away quicker than her sound. That, slowly, her things had disappeared, been misplaced. That he had few reminders of her, other than memory now.

He’d realize he’d gone on and survived, and lived, without her, even though there were times he was sure he wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

But for now she was there, around him, with him. She was reflected back to him by the people they’d shaped, and all they’d accomplished. And for now that would suffice.


End file.
